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Updates on Day 12 of Egypt Protests

By Sharon Otterman February 5, 2011 7:44 amFebruary 5, 2011 7:44 am

The Lede provided updates on Saturday on the street protests and related developments in Egypt. For a summary, read the current version of our main news article from our colleagues in Cairo. Our updates mix breaking news alerts with reports from bloggers and journalists posted on other news sites and social networks. A stream of live Twitter updates appears in The Lede’s right column. Readers can share information in the comment thread below or send photographs or video from Egypt to pix@nyt.com.

It was still unclear how the report had emerged, whether due to a mistranslation, a rush to be competitive, misdirection by the government, a simple mistake, and/or all of the above.

Meanwhile, the State Information Service also sought to clarify one of the other mysteries of the day, the alleged assassination attempt against the new vice president, Omar Suleiman, that a German diplomat had referred to in Munich. It turns out that there had been a shooting on January 28, but the government denied that it was an assassination attempt.

The statement from the government follows:

CAIRO – An official source denied reports that the motorcade of Vice President Omar Suleiman had been targeted by gunfire.

The official source stated that the Vice-President’s motorcade was passing through an area of disturbances and violence during the security vacuum that began in the first hours after the announcement of the curfew on Friday 28 January 2011. The first car in the motorcade was hit by a stray bullet originating from an exchange of fire between criminal elements.

The official source stated that the Vice-President had not been targeted by any attack, nor was he injured in any way, and there was no evidence of intent or targeting in this random incident that occurred a number of days ago.

Thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square are preparing to settle in for the night under their makeshift tarps and blankets, metaphorically curling up around the tanks. A clear standoff has emerged, with the protesters refusing to budge until President Mubarak steps down, and the government, despite some concessions, determined to stand firm.

Yet the square may well have become the safest place for many activists. There are periodic reports of continuing round-ups of pro-democracy activists outside the square. Amnesty International has issued a statement calling on the government to investigate the continued disappearance of youth organizers, even as some human rights workers have been released.

“We remain very concerned about activists belonging to groups such as the 6 April Movement, the Youth of Justice and Liberty and the National Association for Change, who were detained in separate incidents on 3 February and whose whereabouts we are still trying to establish,” the Amnesty statement says.

Egyptians know that the security forces of the state are capable of finding them long after protests end. In past years, anti-government activists have been arrested, released and rearrested; security forces have threatened family members, neighbors and livelihoods. That’s one reason that for many in the square, there is no going back.

Sandmonkey, a liberal blogger in the square, is worried that the protesters need to take the next step in organizing themselves if they want to withstand what may lie ahead.

Via Twitter he writes: So here is my 2 cents: Instead of getting blankets, please get some foldable tables, chairs, papers, pens and a laptop.

Start registering the protesters, get their names, addresses & districts. Start organizing them into committees. & they elect leaders.

But the status quo won’t due. This lack of action and organization will be used against us in every way possible.

The National Democratic Party in Egypt has an array of leaders, some old-guard contemporaries of the 82-year-old president, and some, roughly the generation of the president’s 47-year-old son, Gamal, who are associated with more liberal economic policies, and who long ago pledged to bring a liberalizing force to the regime.

As a party that has run the country essentially as a single-party state, the NDP retains a Soviet-esque structure. There are 45 members of the supreme council of the party, who nominate the president, 15 committee secretaries, and 12 members of the political bureau.

Along with Gamal, who stepped down Saturday as deputy secretary general and the head of the policies committee, Safwat al-Sherif, resigned as secretary general, a position directly under Mubarak. Moufid Shehab, the minister of parliamentary affairs, also lost his position, as has Zakariya Azmi, Mubarak’s longstanding chief of staff.(The chart shows how things stood just before the shakeup.)

“This is a game of musical chairs to install a new political elite, some of which will be those who survived the old one,” Mr. El Amrani writes. The new secretary-general of the NDP is Hossam Badrawy, who was the secretary for business, and “was of the liberal, reformist NDPers who wanted to bring change from the inside,” he writes.

The chart also shows the businessmen whom the president has decided to fire and prosecute—including wealthy industrialist, Ahmed Ezz, who has had his assets seized, and Rachid Mohamed Rachid, the former trader minister, who also faces a travel ban.

While those being prosecuted are certainly not angels. Mr. Issander, a long-time watcher of these matters, sees a political power play behind this selective justice.

“Having some scapegoated while others (notably generals dealing in big land deals) escape unscathed is ridiculous and dishonest,” he writes. “All of this reinforces my feeling that we are in the middle of a slow-moving coup, and possibly one planned for a long time.”

While we are awaiting clarity on whether President Hosni Mubarak remains the head of the ruling National Democratic Party in Egypt– he is definitely still president, in any case– here is some news on one of Egypt’s leading opposition bloggers.

The blogger is Mahmoud Salem, a 29-year-old graduate of Northeastern University in Boston. Speaking to Elliot Spitzer on Friday, Mr. Salem described how he and some friends had been attacked by regime supporters and the Egyptian police a day earlier as they attempted to bring medical supplies to the protesters in Tahrir Square.

In the interview, Mr. Salem expressed concern for a fellow blogger who has been missing for more than a week, Wael Ghonim, a Google executive who was in Cairo to take part in the protests when he disappeared.

Mr. Salem explained to CNN that he decided to come forward because anonymity no longer seemed protective.
“During this week, I’ve gotten tear-gassed, attacked and almost lynched by an angry mob,” he told Mr. Spitzer. “I don’t know what else I could be scared of? I think they could like throw me into jail or something, I don’t know. There is nothing left anymore.”

Has Hosni Mubarak resigned as the head of the ruling National Democratic Party, or hasn’t he? Reuters is quoting a television report saying that he has resigned.

But an Al Jazeera reporter, Alan Fisher, reports on Twitter that the station has been unable to get official confirmation (even though the anchor has been announcing the resignation for the last hour), and the Al Jazeera scroll now only speaks of Gamal Mubarak’s resignation, not his father’s. It seems that the source of the information may not be state television at all, but Al Arabiya, a private pan-Arab television station.

@AlanFisher, the al Jazeera correspondent, reports: “TV station breaking the news now backpedaling.”

We will keep you updated as we learn more.

Correction: February 5, 2011

An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that The Associated Press had quoted state television as saying that Hosni Mubarak had resigned as the head of the National Democratic Party. The A.P. reported only that other party leaders had resigned, not that Mr. Mubarak had stepped down.

Reuters is reporting, via Egyptian state television, that President Hosni Mubarak resigned as head of Egypt’s ruling party on Saturday. Al Jazeera is reporting the same.

Other top leaders have also stepped down, including Gamal Mubarak, the son of the president, who has long been considered by many the presumptive heir to the presidency.

The secretary-general of the party, Safwat el-Sharif, has also resigned in a gesture to protesters, Reuters reports. “The new secretary general of the party is Hossam Badrawi, seen as a member of the liberal wing of the party.”

Assuming this is accurate, Mr. Mubarak would still retain the presidency, so the impact of his resignation from the party is unclear. Protesters could see the move as cosmetic, or it may shift public sentiment in Egypt toward compromise and away from the protesters.

Mr. Mubarak has said repeatedly he will remain in office until elections in September, in which he will not run. The National Democratic Party has long dominated political life in Egypt, and the shake up of the party leadership would appear to be a major development.

Pool photo by Jens MeyerGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the International Conference on Security Policy in Munich.

In Munich, confusion over remarks made by a diplomat over an alleged assassination attempt against the new Egyptian vice president — the diplomat has retracted the comments– grabbed much of the attention, but there are also important policy speeches being made, our colleague Judy Dempsey reports.

“In a powerful speech setting out how Europe should respond to the extraordinary events unfolding in North Africa and the Middle East, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the European Union should make no compromises when it comes to defending human rights in the region.

With the E.U. criticized for being slow to react to the collapse of the regime in Tunisia last month and the continuing pro-democracy demonstrations and violence in Egypt, Mrs. Merkel dismissed those who put stability before the quest for freedom even if it meant a time of unpredictability and chaos.

“There is one red line that we should not cross,” Mrs. Merkel told a gathering of world leaders, top diplomats including U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and security experts this year’s Munich Security Conference. “It is a commitment of human rights, the respect of the dignity of the human being. There should be no compromises,” Mrs. Merkel said.

But Mrs. Merkel also added that “change needs to be shaped in a peaceful and sensible way,” even suggesting that elections should be delayed.

Mrs. Clinton struck a similar tone with her public remarks, saying that the risks in a transition to democracy should be carefully managed.

“There are risks when the transition to democracy comes,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Ït could be chaotic. It could backslide into another authoritarian regime. The transition must be deliberate, inclusive and transparent.”

Mrs. Clinton added “We know that elections alone are not sufficient. Strong institutions have to be built. These are the building blocks.”

Despite tighter checkpoints slowing down entry, the crowd has been steadily growing in Tahrir Square, witnesses report via Twitter. Meanwhile a senior military officer, the head of central command for the army, arrived to the square in an attempt to reason with the crowd and ask them to return home, Al Jazeera English reports.

The response was renewed life among the subdued crowd, which began chanting, “We’re not leaving, he is,” drowning out the officer’s words. The army is trying to get the outskirts of the square back to normal. It is now 5 p.m. there, two hours before curfew. The rain has cleared, and the sun is peeking through the mist and clouds.

“It’s a staring contest: who is going to blink first?” an Al Jazeera correspondent says.

CNN is now running a breaking news headline saying that the German minister who publicly mentioned on Saturday an assassination attempt against the new Egyptian vice-president was retracting his comments.

Wolfgang Ischinger, the host of the Munich Security Conference, had told a plenary session of the meeting that there was an attempt against Omar Suleiman, the new vice president, and several people were killed. But he had not provided any details.

“I was led to believe that we had a confirmed report but in fact we didn’t,” Wolfgang Ischinger told CNN, adding the information he received was based on an unsubstantiated source.

There has been confusion and mystery about this alleged attempt since rumors of it first began to swirl last night. The Egyptian defense ministry has denied it. In Munich, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had seemed to refer to it in her remarks, CNN reported, but she is apparently walking that back. We will try to sort this out for you as we know more.

Ed Ou for The New York TimesEgyptian soldiers on Saturday tore down part of a barricade in Tahrir Square that had been erected by antigovernment supporters.

For the last hour or so, protesters and the army have been arguing about whether to remove a protester-constructed barricade in Tahrir Square near the Egyptian Museum. The army wants it gone; the protesters say it is needed to protect them against the pro-Mubarak security forces who have attacked them in the past.

Yet the mood is not exactly tense, as my colleague Stephen Farrell, who is in the square, reports via Twitter. Instead, there has been an uncomfortable version of a charm offensive from Army officers in the square, as they have tried to reason with the protesters, even as their tanks and heavy equipment loom nearby.

The head of Egypt’s natural gas company has released a statement saying that a fire at a gas terminal in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which has interrupted supplies to Jordan and Israel, was caused by a gas leak, not terrorism. As Sky News reports:

“The confirmation came several hours after the regional governor in the Sinai, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, had blamed the incident on “sabotage”.

The head of the Egyptian company for natural gas, Magdy Toufik, countered that earlier claim and said in a statement that the fire broke out as a result of a “small amount of gas leaking”.

Egyptian state TV had blamed “terrorists” for the explosion, which sent flames towering into the sky near the Gaza Strip. State-controlled television in Egypt, as The Times has reported, has been focusing on lawlessness and chaos in its coverage as an argument for the stability of the regime.

Thousands of demonstrators continue to gather in Tahrir Square on Day 12 of the protests in Cairo, where the scene is peaceful, but the mood more restrained than during massive protests on Friday. The army has reinforced checkpoints, lengthening lines to enter the square, and appears to be shrinking the zone permitted to the demonstrators in an effort to contain them. A light rain is falling.

Meanwhile, talks about easing President Mubarak out of power continue behind closed doors, as my colleagues David Sanger and David Kirkpatrick report:

The country’s newly named vice president, Omar Suleiman, and other top military leaders were discussing steps to limit Mr. Mubarak’s decision-making authority and possibly remove him from the presidential palace in Cairo — though not to strip him of his presidency immediately, Egyptian and American officials said. A transitional government headed by Mr. Suleiman would then negotiate with opposition figures to amend Egypt’s Constitution and begin a process of democratic changes.

In other major news, there was an apparent assassination attempt against the new vice president, Oman Suleiman, reports CNN, but even the basic details remain sketchy. The source is a diplomat in Munich, where there is an international security conference talking place:

“Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Egyptian vice president, recently escaped assassination, the host of a security conference in Germany said Saturday,” CNN reports.

German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, the host of the Munich Security Conference, mentioned the development during a plenary session of the meeting and said that several people were killed.

There have been several other developments overnight, including:

— A towering fire rose from an explosion on an Egyptian gas pipeline in the north Sinai, an act that state television labeled as terrorism. It appeared to be under control within several hours.

— All of the human rights activists from the Hisham Mubarak Center have been released, reports Alaa Abd al Fattah, a well-known blogger whose father was among them. There are many other Egyptians who remain missing or in detention, activists report.

–President Mubarak has summoned his economic advisers in an effort to restart the economy, state media reports. Banks are expected to open Sunday.

–There is a sign of normalcy in parts of Cairo– honking traffic. It has reappeared in force on the 6th of October Bridge, one of the main arteries across the Nile, and in Zamalek, the leafy island where many expatriates live, people in Cairo say. Ben Wedeman from CNN reports via Twitter that “Zamalek looks…almost normal. People in cafes, traffic, police.”

–There has been an initial attempt at a government dialogue with the opposition, but its unclear how serious that is. Blake Hounshell, the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine who is now in Cairo, sums up the Egyptian government’s strategy as follows, via twitter: “Launch pretend dialogue to divide opposition, seem reasonable, stall for time; meanwhile, contain Tahrir.”

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